the name game
So what’s in a name? Well, connection to family, and professional identify. And aesthetics.
I would like to have the same last name as The Boy once we get married. There’s a variety of reasons, some with rainbow sprinkles, but I don’t think they’re relevant to the arguments below. So the question, then, is how to accomplish this.
Be Traditional: I don’t want the same last name as his parents. They are nice, but I am not them. So if I assume his name in any fashion, it must be submerged in the morass of my many other names, or somehow modified. Plus it freaks me the ha-ell out when my cousins or other people just switch their names over, performing middle-name-ectomies or birth-surname-ostomies. (Yes, I do think it leaves a hideous gaping hole.)
Besides, while I don’t have a long and storied publication history, I have a seven-letter last name, and this gives me the perfectest default username possible. The Boy’s surname is 8 letters. And while my family is kind of stupid, just like the name, it is stupidly MINE.
Be All Egalitarian And Shit: Like many USians of somewhat German descent, I have a stupidly bungled Germanic surname. The Boy, like many nice Canadian Menno boys, has a stupid Germanic surname. Hyphenated, they sound like a mouthful of spiky poi. GERMAN spiky poi. Blended, they sound like German words with the balls cut off. (Aside: is that Dutch?) If I had my mom’s last name, which is a whopping two letters long, this might not be such an issue.
Be Somewhat Egalitarian and Shit: Play madlibs with surnames. Both take all of them. Make something up from mom’s maiden names. Make whoever’s names we don’t use feel hurt and left out.
Lay it Down: Refuse to give up perfect username. Give friends excuse to call Boy “whipped” for the rest of his life. Deal with angst from father-in-law who has no other sons.
Ignore it and it Will Never Go Away: My mom neglected to change her name when getting married out of sheer laziness. Ten years later, out of embarassment, she asked my dad to apply for a credit card with her married name, and from there it spiralled out of control with hypenation on school forms and crap. They have been married twenty-five years and she has never been able to remember which name she is supposed to be using. And she is getting on towards sixty, so it’s not going to get better.